Strange Creature! Curiously Beautiful Presumed Mid-Century Hand-Carved Modernist Animal Chinese lacquer box with their spindly legs

with their spindly legs

--and can almost picture its maker with their knife in hand sitting at the end of the day whittling away

I've looked at a fair amount of hair work

There is one chip on the lip that shows the same color as the body

and like a book of indigo calico swatches in the round

Strange Creature! Curiously Beautiful Presumed Mid-Century Hand-Carved Modernist Animal Chinese lacquer box with their spindly legsA curious creature! What it is meant to be I am really not at all sure. And where it came from I'm not sure either, though I think perhaps Danish modern. An interesting mix of awkward and elegant, feeling a bit like a submarine on four legs, but somehow its proportions adding up to feel quite right and quite resolved. And I must say that this creature, a but surprisingly to me, really holds its own, complementing everything I place near it. 6 1 2" x 4